WordPress is the most widely used content management system (CMS) on the web today, with 39.6% of websites based on this platform. It is known for its flexibility and ease of use, but there are some drawbacks to using WordPress that can have a negative impact on your website. In this article, we will discuss the good, the bad, and our experience of using WordPress to create websites. The core software that runs WordPress isn't designed to do all the things that a website needs.
Each plugin, even with the intention of making things work faster or safer or look cooler, adds volume to your site. What's worse, they add possible entries for malware and hackers. However, as it was not designed for action-based websites and as it is mainly used by the semi-professional community or web designers new to the industry, we often hear from potential customers that WordPress, or a WordPress web designer have let them down or that their site has been hacked or is too difficult to use. WordPress, along with different platforms such as Envato Market or Template Monster, offers a wide variety of website designs called themes.
The theme is a front-end style of your website, which is installed on your WordPress account. It contains color schemes, widget locations, page templates (layouts), fonts, and other stylistic details. In general, free WordPress themes propose simple design and limited functionality, and premium themes include more features along with an elegant design. The problem with these themes arises when you download the theme and discover that it doesn't fit your brand identity the way it's supposed to.
Also, when you insert your media files, the template doesn't look as “premium” and elegant as it used to in the preview (premium theme designers spend hours finding the images in the photo banks that match each other perfectly). WordPress offers plugins for your content management system to increase functionality. It can be a list of accordions or a gallery. While it may seem like an incredible option to make your website look better and more personalized, you take a chance with every plugin you install.
Each plugin is created by a random Joe, which means that if the plugin fails, there aren't many (if any) support options to help you get your website working properly again. Also, since add-ons are created by different people, there is no guarantee that they will work together. One might work very well on your site, but adding another could cause chaos. WordPress has to be constantly updated. Both the main platform and all add-ons.
The reasons vary from the vulnerabilities found and the compatibility fixes to the new features of the add-on. If you don't stay up to date, your website can become increasingly vulnerable to attacks. Extending the functionality of your WP website is very easy; you just need to install plugins. The market is full of different plugins which can add any necessary functions to your website. But don't get too excited about this as this can create several problems.
The sad truth is that plugins slow down your website; and the more plugins you install, the slower your website will work. In addition, add-ons may collide with each other and stop working together. When you download add-ons created by different vendors they don't always collaborate with each other and you may lose functionality instead of getting it. That's why sometimes you need to invest time and money in adjusting each plugin to fit the specific needs of your website. Being an open source software with many developers working on it, WordPress releases new features quite often; themes and plugins are updated regularly. Sometimes WordPress even ends up updating 5 or even more times in a month. WordPress positions itself as an SEO-friendly platform but in fact almost all open source CMS are SEO-friendly.
Although you should automatically optimize your website and improve your search rankings; WordPress only gives you basic optimization. If you want to boost your website you should download special SEO plugins which as we know slow down the loading speed of your project. This affects your overall SEO scores and lowers your site's search engine ranking due to the number of factors; WordPress is still a very slow platform. Page loading speed is reduced with additional running processes due to heavy plugins; crowded databases; and frustrating code base. What else can slow down a WP website? Huge and heavy images not optimized for SEO; unreliable hosting; heavy themes; unoptimized homepages; unreliable CDN; and many other factors can make your website slower. At the same time page speed is a crucial factor for both user experience and SEO ranking; modern users hate slow websites and don't wait more than 2 seconds for the page to load; meanwhile Google and other search engines rank websites according to their speed. Although many people tend to use WordPress for their business websites and consider it quite easy and understandable; in fact WordPress has a flexible layout which causes numerous interruptions of plugins and technology in general. Unfortunately hosting is all you can do with the WordPress offer; while prices are lower WordPress won't monitor your website for you or help you resolve discrepancies between third-party plugins. Keep in mind that the more plugins you add to your website; the slower the site will run; and you may experience compatibility and security issues. Matthew McWaters is the owner of LUCID and has more than 15 years of experience in web design and web development. Over the years Matthew has designed hundreds of websites for large and small businesses; and has helped many of those companies increase their online traffic and conversion. Any vulnerability of the website can have a negative impact on its credibility; and could spread viruses to its users. WordPress is also known for messing up sitemaps due to its special category labeling.
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